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Mixing a Musical Mixing a Musical: Broadway Theatrical Sound Techniques, Second Edition pulls the curtain back on one of the least understood careers in live theater: the role and responsibilities of the sound technician. This comprehensive book encompasses every position from shop crew labor to assistant designer to sound board operator and everything in between. Written in a clear and easy to read style and illustrated with real-world examples of personal experience and professional interviews, Slaton shows you how to mix live theater shows from the basics of equipment and set ups, using sound levels to create atmosphere, emotion, and tension to ensure a first-rate performance every time. This new edition gives special attention to mixing techniques and practices, and special features of the book include interviews with some of today’s most successful mixers and designers. Shannon Slaton is a sound designer based in New York. He has designed the tours Elf, Kiss Me Kate, Noise/Funk, The Full Monty, Contact, Tap Dogs, Hairspray, The Producers, Sweeney Todd, The Wizard of Oz, The Drowsy Chaperone, Sound of Music, Bullets over Broadway, Finding Neverland, Memphis, Amazing Grace, and The Wedding Singer. His Broadway work mixing includes Man of La Mancha, Bombay Dreams, A Christmas Carol, Sweet Charity, Jersey Boys, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Drowsy Chaperone, Spring Awakening, Fela!, Anything Goes, Holiday Inn, Annie, Cabaret, Springsteen on Broadway, and Legally Blonde. On Broadway he designed The Illusionists at the Palace. Off-Broadway he assisted on Hurly Burly and on Broadway he assisted on Steel Magnolias and was the Associate on Barefoot in the Park, Blackbird, An Act of God, Present Laughter, Meteor Shower, and was the Advance Sound on Wicked. Regional designs include shows at George Street Playhouse, Casa Manana, Maine State Music Theater, and North Carolina Theater.

Mixing a Musical

Broadway Theatrical Sound Techniques Second Edition

Shannon Slaton

Second edition published 2019 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Shannon Slaton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2011 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Slaton, Shannon, author. Title: Mixing a musical : Broadway theatrical sound techniques / Shannon Slaton. Description: Second edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2018. | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017059500 | ISBN 9780815367482 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138491441 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781351033060 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Theaters—Electronic sound control. | Auditoriums—Electronic sound control. | Sound—Recording and reproducing. Classification: LCC TK7881.4 .S57 2018 | DDC 792.02/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017059500 ISBN: 978-0-815-36748-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-49144-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-03306-0 (ebk) Typeset in Utopia by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To my wife, Mollie, thank you for all of your support. To my son, Parker, you make me believe in superheroes. To my daughter, Lizzie, yes, you are a princess with magical powers. Also, to three of the best mixers I have ever known, Jordan Pankin, Bob Biasetti, and Francis Elers. I have learned most of what I know from these guys. To Patrick Pummill for being a great friend and one of my favorite people to talk shop with. Finally, to Scott Armstrong for being my favorite person to build a show and debate with. You are missed by me and many others in the sound community.

CONTENTS 

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CONTENTS Introduction—Why the Bleep Am I Writing This?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . i x Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x i x Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x x i i i

PART I  THE CAREER PATH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1  What Does It Mean to be a Theatrical Mixer? . . . . . . . . . 3 Chapter 2  History of Theatrical Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 Chapter 3  Different Positions in Theatrical Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 9 Chapter 4  Different Levels of Theatrical Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3 PART II  THE PREP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7 Chapter 5  Design Team’s Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9 Chapter 6  Mixer’s Job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 9 Chapter 7  The Shop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3 Chapter 8  Build Schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 7 Chapter 9  Build Techniques. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 9 PART III  THE TAKE-IN OR LOAD-IN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 10  Design Team’s Job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 11  Mixer’s Job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 12  Unions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 13  The Schedule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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PART IV  TECH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 14  Tony Meola on Mixing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 15  Design Team’s Job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 16  Mixer’s Job. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 17  A2’s Job (Mic’ing Techniques). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 18  Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 19  Mixing the Musical. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 20  My Advice to Mixers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 21  Tips from the Pros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 22  Suggested Projects for Mixers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 6 9 Epilogue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 7 7 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 7 9

WHY THE BLEEP AM I WRITING THIS? 

INTRODUCTION—WHY THE BLEEP AM I WRITING THIS? As I begin what I know will be a laborious and grueling task, this is the main question I have. Why am I doing this? Why am I about to put myself through this? Hours and hours of sitting alone and trying to work myself into the mood of writing. Bleh! I remember hearing a story about Tom Waits (if you don’t know him, then stop reading and go listen to “Frank’s Wild Years” before reading any further. I will wait.). Anyway, I heard a story about how Tom Waits has a muse and he talks to the muse all the time while writing and recording an album. Story goes, Tom is trying to record one more song for an album and they do take after take and it’s just not working. Tom, or Mr. Waits—both seem inappropriate. I don’t know him, so I shouldn’t call him Tom, but I feel like I know him because he has lived in my ears for decades, so Mr. Waits seems too formal. Anyway, Tommy is talking to his muse about this song and he’s really frustrated because it’s just not working, and he says something to the effect of, “Alright, this is your last chance. The bags are packed and the car is loaded. Now either you get in the car with the rest of the songs or we are leaving you behind.” Well, let me be the first to tell you that a muse for writing about technical theater and sound mixing does not exist. I have searched, but there is no invisible creative friend to prod you along and give you inspiration. It’s not fun. It’s not exciting. The only reason I am writing this is because I have something to say about this craft and, bleep it, I feel compelled to write it. When I was asked to write the first edition, I had no clue there would be a second edition. I was very excited at the thought of putting my thoughts and experiences down on paper to share with people and hopefully learn ’em something. I wanted to write the book because I loved theatrical sound mixing and wanted to share the experience of having a career in theatrical sound as a mixer. I wanted to

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show people it was an art form as well as a technical challenge. I wanted to show people that it was an exciting career path—but even then, I knew I was taking a big risk by writing it. I mean, seriously, who am I? I’m just a normal old sound mixer. I’m not the best. I’m not the first. In fact, in the world of mixers, I would put myself in the third generation of mixers, and I only say that because most of the mixers I learned from had learned their craft from the first generation of mixers. This craft was so young when I started that I could say I was learning from a guy who learned from a guy who was among the first people to put a mic on an actor. Now he had some stories to tell and a lot to teach. So, who am I? (Cue the Les Miz music “24601.”) When I wrote the book, I told very few people what I was doing. I was worried about getting made fun of. Let’s face it. Theater is a tough business full of people who like to rib each other. I am as guilty as the next stagehand. I mean, if you are not careful you will be marked for life for the simplest mistake. If you fumble tying a clove hitch one day, you might end up being called “Hitch” for the next 20 years. I know a guy who people call “Bowline” because he had a meltdown onstage when someone tied a bowline on something that did not in any way require a bowline. I figure he has another five-year sentence on that nickname, but he might get paroled for good behavior in two to three. So, suffice it to say, I was a bit nervous for the Broadway community to learn about my secret. I knew there would be ribbing. I knew there would be snickering behind my back. I knew there would be nicknames. In fact, one person whom I respect very much sent me an email when they found out. It very tersely and in not so many words said, “Who the bleep do you think you are?” I still respect this person very much and hopefully my sentence is not life for this. I wish this person could’ve seen that what I was writing was to honor and pass on the passion this person had helped instill in me. But I had expected that reaction by some. I think, by far, my favorite ribbing happened where lots of good ribbing happens. In a bar. Now, when I tell you about this, I want it to be a lesson that you need a thick skin in this business; if you can’t laugh about things, then it is going to be rough for you. Broadway sound people are a close-knit

WHY THE BLEEP AM I WRITING THIS? 

group of cutthroat pirates, and we like to get together. We all know each other, and we enjoy hanging out together. I don’t see the same with other disciplines, but maybe it happens, and I just don’t know. For decades on Broadway, sound people will choose a night and a bar and will meet and laugh and talk about whatever we are doing. I can tell you it is almost always on a Thursday, but I can’t tell you where. One night, about a year after the book came out, I was talking to a designer/mixer I knew. We have known each other for probably 15 years, but we have never actually worked together. I basically only see and talk to her at these get-togethers. But we have always been friendly. Out of the blue and four pints in, she brings up my book. I never bring up my book at these events. In fact, I don’t mention my book within a ten-block radius of Times Square, just to keep from getting a nickname. But she brought it up and said she hadn’t read it. I explained that I wrote it to get young people excited about a career in sound. She said, and this is almost verbatim, “I think that is great. And you know (hiccup), I feel like (hiccup) a book like that needed to be (hiccup) written. I just wish that it had been written by someone with (hiccup) more experience. You know.” I replied as only I could. “Yeah. I know. I agree.” That was what I was afraid of when I wrote the book. I was never trying to put myself forward as an expert. I learned from experts. I developed a passion for the craft. I felt more like a conduit passing on what I had learned. But to be fair, my resume is not too shabby. By the way, I still talk to her and consider her a friend, and I totally respect her opinion. Thick skin. So why am I willing to do this again, open up these wounds and take a chance of getting pegged with some god-awful nickname? There are a couple of reasons. First, I don’t think I finished. Writing a book takes a lot of time and mental patience. It just roams around your brain all the time. It is exhausting. I am proud of the book I wrote, but I feel like I left some things out. In a way, I ran out of steam. I didn’t have the stamina to do any more. Over the last six years, I have had time to think over what I wrote and what I didn’t. Every once in a while, I will be at a gig and just think, “I wish I had put this in the book.” In my career, I straddled the world between mixer and designer for 20 years. Recently,

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I have moved away from mixing and more towards solely designing, and I have worked with a lot of mixers at different levels. There have been times when a young mixer would ask me a question and I would jokingly say, “Read Chapter 5 of my book. The answer is in there.” But there are lots of other times when a question is asked and I realize I didn’t put this in the book. I’m hoping to fill some of those holes. Another reason I am writing this edition is because of a fair criticism I have received from some people. I have been told that I didn’t spend enough time writing about actual mixing. I think this is probably true, and I plan to go on a deeper dive in this edition, but this also points out a failure in the first edition that I hope to rectify in this edition. One of my main points in the first book is that being a mixer is a lot more than moving faders up and down and pressing “GO.” It is about the minutia and the politics. It’s like making a cake. Mixing is like icing a cake. It’s fun and creative. It’s what everyone sees as being a mixer. But you don’t get to that point without first developing a recipe and buying the ingredients. Then you have to assemble the ingredients, and you better know that you mix your wet, then your dry, and then together. You have to know how to properly grease a pan or it won’t slide out. Then you have to put the layers together and make the icing. Then you get to ice the cake. I am going to double-down in this edition to make it clear that you have to know it all to be a good mixer, as well as go deeper into the mechanics of mixing. An example of this is the show I am designing right now. I am sitting in the Brunswick Tavern in scenic Maine waiting for my breakfast before heading off to a 10 out of 12. Just in case you haven’t heard that expression before, it means we will be working in the theater with the actors for 12 hours with two meal breaks. Of course, I will be there two hours before the cast and an hour after, so it is really a 10 out of 15 for me and the rest of the creatives and crew. The mixer at the theater is Nate Dickson. He’s a great guy and really on top of it. What makes him a great mixer, to me, is not how well he moves the faders. What makes him really good at what he does is that he had a well-thought out plan and he executed it. Com and video were up and running with no problems. The pit was set up and tested a day before the

WHY THE BLEEP AM I WRITING THIS? 

band moved in. His crew (hi, Julie, Rachel, and Connor) have busily prepped mics for the actors. It all runs like a smooth process, and because of that Nate and I have been able to spend time with clear heads developing a strategy for mixing the show and programming the board. Heck, we’ve even had time to laugh and joke with very little stress, and that should be the goal. By the time you sit down to mix, it should be a joy, and the only way that can happen is if all the other bleep has been taken care of. There is another reason I am writing this. I have found over the years that musical theater is not always part of theatrical sound design education. I am not saying that it isn’t taught anywhere, but it is rare. There are some very good programs out there to learn how to design and mix musical theater. But I know there are lots of places where it is not a major part of the curriculum. I remember years ago asking a professor of sound design why his program didn’t offer any courses in musical theater and he said it just wasn’t the focus of the program. They specialized in plays. In preparing to write this book, I asked some people for thoughts and opinions and was told by one person that “very few programs (undergrad or graduate) provide a specific course in sound for musical theater.” How is that possible? Why would a sound design program ignore a very important job opportunity in theater? I am currently designing a show in a theater that only does musicals. And this is one of three theaters I have designed for that only does musicals, and without much effort I can think of half a dozen other regional theaters that only do musicals. There are currently 40 Broadway theaters, and I have climbed into the ceiling of approximately 26 of them. Currently there are 30 shows playing on Broadway, and of those 30 shows, 25 of the shows are musicals and only five are plays. There are currently 24 Broadway tours traveling the country, and of those 24 shows, only one is a play. If you look at USA829 contract minimums, the fee and weekly for designing a musical is almost 70% more than for a play. Even at regional theaters, most theaters have at least one musical a year. It’s time we stop ignoring musicals in theatrical sound education. I can understand some of the reasons musical theater is hard in the educational world. In order to teach it you need

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a program that performs musicals. How can you really learn about mixing and designing musicals unless you get to do it? My college only did two musicals in the four years I was there. I mixed both musicals, but it definitely wasn’t enough to build a complete learning experience around. But there are ways to learn to mix musicals without actually having live productions, and I plan to explain that later in the book. There is another important thing you need in order to teach sound for musicals. You need a decent-sized theater and a proper sound system. My college was lacking the latter. We had a decent-sized theater, but there was no sound system. The two musicals we did were supported by a local sound hire company that mainly did rock and roll and corporate gigs. But, again, there are ways to learn this without having a large theater and an amazing sound system. One of the people I talked to suggested I go into depth on how to EQ a mic and tune a system. As I stated in the first edition, that is not the purpose of this book. If you want to learn about EQ and tuning, you should read Bob McCarthy or take a seminar with the people from Smaart. I have mixed shows where I never touched the EQ unless there was a cover in the show. I have worked with designers who didn’t want me to touch the EQ, and I can’t think of a single designer who would want me to touch the system EQ. But there are concepts that you need to understand as a mixer that I will go over in this book, and there are exercises you can do to learn about sound for a musical without having a full system in place. It astonishes me sometimes how overlooked sound in musical theater can be. I have several friends at the World Stage Design Conference in Taipei right now. About 12 years ago, for the very first World Stage Design Conference, I submitted a design I did of the national tour of The Full Monty. I filled out the application. I made a packet that included signal flow drawings and speaker tower drawings. I even made a video with pictures of the production and the racks and equipment, and I set it to music from the show so you could hear the mix of the show. I was rejected by the conference because they didn’t see the value in rack drawings and signal flow drawings. They also said that I could only use original music. I argued that if you require only the use of original music, then the World Stage Design Conference would never

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be able to showcase musical theater sound designers. Here we are 12 years later, and they still do not allow musical theater sound designers to be part of the conference unless, of course, that designer also wrote the musical. In my opinion, it seems that what they consider to be sound design is actually musical composition. As someone who makes subtle decisions about speaker placement and reverb and level to help push the story forward, it is frustrating to find that work is not considered sound design as much as writing a song is. Another crucial element you need—actually, the most important element you need—is teachers who are able to teach sound. From my many visits to USITT, my experience is that this is not a problem for most programs out there. I even know some retired Broadway musical mixers who have started teaching. Now, that is awesome. But that is not always the case. Sound is very specialized and can appear to be voodoo to lots of people. I have a friend whose sound classes were taught by the lighting professor, who tried to explain how you have to set the “intensity” of the fader correctly. My friend was like, “Yeah, I don’t think it works that way.” It is not uncommon for lighting people to teach sound. After all, us sound people are just assistant electricians in the eyes of the union. And the reality is that our worlds are not that much different. They just seem to be. I have worked with several lighting teachers to help them understand sound so that they could incorporate more into their classes. I can only hope this book helps a teacher in that situation. I have a lot of respect for the lighting teachers who are also tasked with teaching sound. That is a lot of knowledge to keep rattling around in the old noggin. I can’t imagine doing it. The longer I am in this business, the less I seem to know about anything except sound. But, most importantly, you need to see the value in sound for musical theater. Mixing and designing sound for a musical is a skill and a craft and an art form. It is easy to overlook it as just technical. There are people who honestly think sound people are ruining musical theater. Once a year at Town Hall in New York, an organization does a fundraiser show called Broadway Unplugged. Here is the description of the show this year: “Broadway Unplugged returns: great show tunes, great Broadway stars, great (big) voices, and

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NO microphones . . . just the pure human voice, the way it used to be on Broadway!” I find it a bit hurtful that I care so much about musicals and work so hard on shows and then the community has a whole show about how much better life is without my field’s contribution. But it’s a sentiment that is out there. And there are people who believe that what we are doing is just amplifying other people’s art, whether it is a singer or a musician. Some people can’t appreciate that we are part of what makes that art work. We have to respect the value of what sound mixers add to a musical. Theatrical musical mixers and designers are not composers. We are technicians and tinkerers, and we are musicians playing a very unique instrument made up of dozens of actors and musicians. We have to respect the art form of mixing theater. But the day is coming that I have been predicted for a few years. More and more plays are mic’ing actors the way we do in musicals and are expecting plays to be mixed similar to a musical. I was recently Associate Sound Designer for Present Laughter at the St. James. We started out with the show being completely area mic’ed. I designed and installed a reinforcement system that could’ve handled a decent-sized musical, and I installed 24 microphones all over the set. I warned the designer, Fitz Patton, and the director and several other people that I didn’t think area mics would work for the show, but we forged ahead on the road of bad intentions our area mic’ing forefathers had laid. For the record, I hate area mic’ing. It plain and simple does not sound good. Ever. You end up amplifying distance. The louder you turn up the mic, the further away the actors sound. We tried and tried to make the area mics work, but this was a show with lots of fast dialogue and quick one-liners. It was not going well. You could hear the actors, but it wasn’t enjoyable. Now, I know all the classic tropes. “Actors aren’t trained to project anymore.” “Audiences aren’t trained to listen anymore.” These memes go on and on blaming everything except the reality that the world has changed. No one wants to see a play where Ethel Merman screams lines to the back of the house. No one wants to block plays where the actors move from one area mic to another. No one wants to watch a show that has cool projection and rotating sets and flying actors and full surround sound rainstorm scenes

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and huge scene change music and an acoustic voice that you have to strain to hear. No one! So after weeks of trying, we finally decided to mic the actors. I had to put mics on the cast in the morning, and without a run I had to mix the show that night in front of 1,500 people and some critics. All I can say was the difference between the audience reaction before mics and after mics was staggering. We went from tepid applause to raucous show-stopping applause. The world is changing. The equipment is more sophisticated. And I am writing this second edition because it is more important than ever that we educate and pass on knowledge and grow this art/technical form. It also can’t hurt to have a book with some insight from a person who has spent a majority of his waking hours for the past 25 years working in musical theater. The final reason I am writing this is because I have more bleep to say!

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FOREWORD 

FOREWORD As a sound designer, one can spend months, sometimes years, planning out a sound system that will complement the show, satisfy paying customers in every seat, fold into the design elements of sets, lights, and costumes, fit within the budget, and, perhaps most importantly, justify the confidence that the director, composer, and producers have entrusted in you to make their show aurally soar. The process for me begins with the reading of the script. You learn what kind of show this one is. Perhaps it’s a rock musical with a small band onstage; perhaps it’s an oldschool musical with a large cast and large orchestra seated in the pit. Maybe it’s British farce with lots of quickly delivered laugh lines. Next, I visit the venue and calculate mathematically what is needed to service this particular show in this particular theater at the appropriate level of volume or energy. Then begins the tedious weeks of drafting and paperwork required to present a specification that will be bid on by vendors eager to secure a show that may or may not bring financial reward. The phone starts to ring. It’s a producer saying you’re over budget. It’s a vendor asking you to substitute what you believe to be the perfect choice of loudspeaker for one that will cost less and help secure the bid. It’s a set designer calling to inform you that there’s been a change and you’ll need to come to their office and work together and re-trim the height of all your calculations. (Just kidding—that call never comes. You find out during load-in and you have to quickly adjust to the unmentioned change. Ah, collaboration.) I’ll spare you, dear reader, the following weeks from bid award to installation, but just know that, for me, they are often filled with anxiety and second guessing. Fast forward to the first day of rehearsal in the theater. The system has been prepped by the rental shop following squiggly lines you’ve drawn on paper. The stagehands have hung the speakers to your specification and focus. The cast comes

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onstage after weeks rehearsing off-site. The stage manager calls “places,” the house lights dim, and we’re about to begin. You take a deep breath and, like a parent sending their child off to school for the first time, you entrust all the expertise of your design to the ears and fingers of your sound mixer. I can think of no other design discipline that so heavily relies on the talent and focus of another person for its success. Like the actor to the playwright, the relationship of mixer to designer is one of utter dependence. As the actor must take the written words and give them depth and a personality, so too must the sound mixer breathe life into a sound design. As time goes by and theater technology grows more and more sophisticated, I’m very happy to employ these technical advances to my benefit. Sound systems have become more efficient, and I think this is a boon to all who produce, design, and mix. Ultimately, it’s the audience who should reap the benefit. It’s what we’re here for—to make a quality product that can be enjoyed by folks who pay for a ticket and bring their dates and their families to sit among a crowd of strangers, transported for a few hours in ways that, hopefully, will last in the patron’s mind and spirit for a long time. Sitting there among the crowd is the sound mixer, literally sharing the experience in real time. This mixer, board op, or engineer, if you prefer, has all the tools of technology at their fingertips. They understand that with a press of a button the cue will change, bringing with that touch an infinite number of possibilities that will affect the show. Reverbs can expand, microphones re-allocate themselves, dogs bark offstage, EQ can soften. All of these and many more reactions to the technology we’ve harnessed can occur, but none of it matters— and this is my favorite part—unless the human touch of the sound mixer is present. The world spins modern wonders, but still, a good sound mixer must use their human senses of touch, hearing, and the ineffable quality of taste to achieve a proper sounding show. As a long-time sound person who began by mixing Off-Broadway shows that led to touring shows that led to Broadway shows, I made the transition some 25 years ago to full-time designer. Since then, I have been blessed with a design career that has allowed me to be part of some great works of American theater. My association with directors and

FOREWORD 

composers and musicians has filled me with a great sense of worth, but I have to say that I often envy my operator. The quality of a sound design is open to endless debate—a good mix is a tangible. There is a moment at the end of a show when the last lyric has been sung and the final note has been played. Perhaps the ending is plaintive and sad, perhaps bombastic and joyous, but the sound mixer makes their last moves and slides the audio into the blackout. The mixer has an inert moment as the audience erupts into applause. The actors take their due adulation and, in that static moment of the mixer’s stillness before preparing for the last bit of music that often accompanies the crowd’s departure from the theater, I believe that there’s a piece of the applause that belongs to the sound operator who, for the last three hours, has quietly performed as electronic conductor/manipulator. As talent support we don’t expect the spotlight, but for the efforts of a mixer who, alone and in the dark, has participated in the live event and contributed fully to the evening, I believe there exists an unheard ovation. That is why I miss mixing. In the following pages of this book Shannon will take you along for the ride an operator goes through towards the ultimate goal of a pristine mix. It has been my pleasure to have worked with Shannon multiple times over the years, and I am confident that he will translate his practical experiences and those of his colleagues into a relatable and informative book, one that will hopefully finds its way into the hands of people who’ll use this knowledge to improve the sound of their local community, college, or regional theater. Who knows? Perhaps a future Broadway mixer will be born. Good luck. —Brian Ronan

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PREFACE 

PREFACE

Before I get started with this book, I feel it is important to answer some key questions like . . . Who am I? Why am I writing this book? Who is it for? How is this book laid out? And . . . if a speaker feeds back in the woods, will anyone hear it? So let me start with the first question. Very simply, I am a sound person. I will do and have done almost any job in the field of theatrical sound. I also consider myself a stagehand. I am willing to work anywhere I am needed in the theater, but I probably shouldn’t be allowed to wield a jigsaw or repair a wiggle light. I started dabbling in theater in high school back in the mid-1980s. I was a spiky-haired little new-wave punk looking for a place to fit in, and for some reason the theater department drew me in. My first venture into theater was as the newspaper boy in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. Ah, those were the days. At that time, I considered myself an actor, but I was one of the few who hung around to build the set and hang and focus the lights. I remember doing musicals back then with no amplification. Nowadays there are high schools running 30 wireless on a musical. It just blows my mind how much things have changed in 25 years.

After high school I went to college and studied English and Theater. What a money-making combo that is! I considered myself an all-around theater person and enjoyed acting, directing, writing, and teching shows. Right after high school and during my first year of college, I worked in lots of little black box theaters around town, and more often than not I was the electrician/light board op. There were also times when I would stage manage as well as build sets. Basically, I would do whatever I needed to in order to get an invitation to the opening night party. Then I became more involved in my college program and did a little of everything. I think wardrobe crew was my least favorite, but other than that I enjoyed what I was doing. I am a big believer in a

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liberal arts education, and I think the field of sound is a perfect example of that style of education, which encourages you to learn a broad range while you focus on your goal and gives you a rich palette of knowledge to use in your career path. I hadn’t really found my niche in theater; I just knew I wanted to work in theater. Sound was barely a part of theater back then. I remember seeing The Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables on Broadway in 1987, and I know those shows were amplified, but in my little world in Texas there was not a lot of sound in theater. Neither my high school, nor my college, nor my local community theater, nor my neighborhood avant-garde theater owned a single wireless microphone. In fact, other than pre-show and some scene change music, I don’t even remember any recorded sound cues in anything I worked on until the last couple of years in college. During my junior year in college we did Sam Shepard’s Mad Dog Blues, which is a really strange musical about people tripping on acid. It was my first experience with sound for the stage. I was told I was going to mix the show and the college rented some equipment from a man who worked in bars and did industrials. He had no theater experience and I had no sound experience. Together we were quite a team. I can’t even imagine what it sounded like now, but I doubt it was very good. I do remember I really enjoyed it and it opened my eyes to a new world in theater. That year I also started the obligatory college band and bought a four-track recorder. Remember those? Four tracks on a cassette. I started getting more interested in sound, but I hadn’t really figured out that there was a career in it. After college I went to graduate school for Dramaturgy, which is basically a person who studies theater and helps explain the socio-economic environment that existed in the time of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and stuff like that. I was into directing and writing and researching theater, but after my first year I realized it just wasn’t what I wanted to do. The whole time I was in school I was working as a stagehand to earn money, and I realized that I enjoyed being a stagehand more than anything. So I dropped out of school and started a dance/theater company with some friends and played with my band in bars all over Texas and Arkansas and Oklahoma.

PREFACE 

Those were the lost years and, man, were they fun. I also worked as a draftsman at an engineering firm, which had been another source of income for me since I was 13. At the ripe old age of 13, I had been introduced to AutoCad 1.0. Very few people knew how to use it at the time, and I figured it out and worked as a draftsman during the summers. After I dropped out of grad school, I fell back on drafting as a way to make money while I figured out what I was doing. By this time, it was the early 1990s and sound had really taken off in theater in my area. My good friend from college, Patrick Pummill, was mixing musicals at a local theater and was soon to start touring, which would lead him to Broadway. I started following his path as it became clear that there was a career to be had. I found myself working at an avantgarde theater called the Undermain and became the sound mixer. My then girlfriend and now wife, Mollie, got me my first job in sound, and she loves to point out the fact that I owe my career to her, so props to Mollie. I loved mixing and I loved that little theater. I mixed punk rock musicals and crazy plays. The more I worked in sound, the more I understood how it brought everything together for me. Unlike any other technical discipline in theater, sound is organically involved in creating the performance. As a mixer you are part actor, part musician, part stagehand, part director, and part dramaturge, and it was a perfect fit for me. Then I moved on to mix at the Dallas Theater Center and I met Curtis Craig, who really opened my eyes and changed my life. The Dallas Theater Center is a very nice regional theater with a 500-seat theater and an 800-seat warehouse space. We did some great work there and it was full of creativity. Curtis was a fantastic sound designer, and I was so impressed with the work he did on plays. He built great layered soundscapes; at the time, we were using minidisc players and some samplers. Can you believe that? Curtis is still a very close friend. He currently teaches at Penn State and anyone who gets to study with him is incredibly lucky. I have hired several of his graduates and they have all been of the highest caliber. While at the Dallas Theater Center I stumbled upon a job posting that changed my life even more. I applied for a position as a touring sound person on a show called Tap Dogs.

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I was so young and dumb and I had no clue how unqualified I was for the job. Fortunately for me, though, when I applied the tour just happened to be in Dallas. The designer was touring on the show; he needed to take a few months off to do another show and was having no luck finding anyone, so I met the designer for an interview and he hired me. As it happens so often in this business, I was offered a job and had to be on a plane a couple of days later and would be gone months. So I said my good-byes and became a touring mixer. The designer’s name was Daryl Lewis. He was from Australia, which meant he talked funny. Once I arrived at the theater in Springfield, Missouri, I think it took Daryl less than five minutes to size me up and realize what a mistake he had made in hiring me. I was completely in over my head. I went from mixing shows for 500 people to mixing shows for 3,000 people. I had never heard of Camlocks or G-Blocks and the Mackie I had become so proficient with at the Dallas Theater Center didn’t have VCAs. I can only imagine what Daryl thought when I asked, “VCAs? What are those?” I arrived for the last day in Springfield and I watched the show that night and was blown away. I couldn’t believe I was going to mix that show. Then we did a load-out, which was my first loadout; I still have a scar from it. When we were dropping the Yamaha PM4K, Daryl asked for hands all around the desk. I jumped in, and as we set it on the ground, Daryl warned us not to get our hands caught under the 600-pound desk. We placed it on the ground and as everyone else stood up, to my horror, I realized that my middle finger was stuck under the desk and there was a piece of sharp metal digging into my flesh. I cried out for a little help and my bloodied finger was released from the console’s death grip. I learned an important lesson right then, which is you never drop a desk like that. Someone could get hurt. And now anytime I start to get a little uppity, I just look at the scar on my finger and that deflates my ego a little. The next stop was St. Louis at the Fox, which is a 3,000seat work of art. The first time I touched the desk was in front of 3,000 people and I was a nervous wreck. I never knew how much sweat could pour out of your palms. Daryl made me bring napkins out front every night to wipe the desk off after I mixed portions of the show. He was not happy with

PREFACE 

me. Basically, after each show he would say, “Well, that was pretty bad. I don’t think this is going to work. Keep your bags packed because I will probably fire you tomorrow.” And then I would go back to my room feeling like a complete failure. It was kind of like the scene in The Princess Bride where the Dread Pirate Roberts would tell Westley, “I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” But luckily Daryl had a plane ticket back to Australia for another job and I was his only hope, so he kept working with me. I learned so much from Daryl; he was a great mixer and a great guy. By the time he left, I was doing a good job on the show, and I took care of the tour while he was gone with very few problems. After that I worked for Daryl for a couple of years. With that change in my life, I began my life as a theater hobo of sorts. I didn’t have a place to live for about seven years other than a bus or a hotel room. I lived on the road and bounced from one tour to another or to a summer stock or regional theater when I needed to. I did my time working for most of the touring production companies, and I toured mostly bus and truck one-nighter tours of musicals. Slowly I started moving up the ladder as a mixer and worked on bigger tours with longer sit-downs. Then I got a job on a union tour and received my union card. Next stop, New York City. When I arrived in New York, it was like I started over. I was back to mixing in basement theaters and at the Fringe Festival and making no money. It took some time to make connections, but luckily my friend Patrick Pummill was mixing on Broadway by then, and he introduced me to Kai Harada and Tony Meola. I can’t say enough about these two people. Plain and simple, Tony is one of my idols. To me, he is a master at his craft, and I fall right in line with his design aesthetic. Kai is one of the most talented and intelligent people I have ever met. After a couple of years doing this or that, I eventually started mixing as a sub on Broadway musicals. My first show was a Tony and Kai show, which was A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. It is just a little 5,000-seat house and we did 15 shows a week for eight weeks. Then I moved on to other shows. At one point I was the sub mixer on four Broadway musicals. It was crazy, but I loved it. Mixing musicals is definitely my passion.

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The next step for me was to become a Local One member, which took me almost seven years. For the past few years I have worked as a deck sound person, sub mixer, and monitor mixer as a house sound person. I also have moved into designing. I rarely design anything but musicals, but I have designed a fair number of musicals. To me, musicals and plays are completely different. Different aesthetics, different techniques, and different skill sets. I can do plays as a mixer, but I prefer musicals. I can design a play, but I prefer musicals. So that’s me in a nutshell. Now, how did I come to write this book? Well, it’s a funny story, actually. Over the years I started developing software on the side, and I became a partner with Stage Research. Stage Research revolutionized playback for theater when they created SFX, which is playback and show control software. Before Stage Research we used minidiscs, CD players, and samplers for sound effects. Once SFX came along, we started using computers for our sound effects. It has made for vastly more complicated sound designs that are infinitely easier to run. I developed a program called ShowBuilder, which is a software solution for paperwork management in theater and is especially geared toward sound. Several years ago Carlton, one of the owners of Stage Research, asked me to create a hand-drafting sound template. He put me in touch with Fred Allen and Steve Shelley. These are the guys who created Field Templates, which is the company that makes hand-drafting templates for lighting. So, we worked together and put out a sound template that could be used to teach basic sound theory as well as be used for hand-drafting. Of course, no one hand-drafts anymore, but the template can be useful in production meetings if you want to do a quick sketch of your plan. Last year I was at USITT and ran into Steve in the hotel bar. Steve had just released the second edition of his book A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting. I was primed with a few pints, so we started chatting it up and I asked him about his book. The next thing I know, a drunken slur of a rant starts pouring out of my mouth about how there really hasn’t been a book written about mixing. About being a theatrical mixer. There are books on design and electronics and the like, but no books on the process and career of being a mixer. Steve told me

PREFACE 

I should write that book, and of course I blurted out, “That’s a great idea,” as I finished off another pint of Guinness. Steve told me he would introduce me to his publisher, which he did, and the next thing I know I am telling Mollie I have to write a book. Of course, she thinks I am crazy, but she knows me and she knows there is no stopping me when I get some thought in my head. So now I find myself spending all my time thinking back over my career in sound and all of the lessons I have learned and all of the amazing people I have worked with. I want to share the knowledge that I have been fortunate enough to soak up. To me, being a sound mixer is a trade that has been passed down from one mixer to another. The history of sound in the theater is still relatively young. It is still possible to meet and talk with the pioneers of the field. How amazing is that? If you have never heard Abe Jacob give a talk, then you have truly missed out and need to find a way to hear him. I also consider myself a historian of theatrical sound. I am fascinated with old war stories and thoroughly enjoy knowing the lineage of mixers and designers. At some point in this book, maybe I will put together the genealogy of theatrical mixing. I feel like there is such a rich and interesting history, and I want to help preserve it so others can learn from it. As sound has developed into an important and crucial part of theater, colleges have started teaching sound. I believe there is a place for these programs to offer a book that gives insight into this amazing field. I believe this book is for several types of people. Most obviously, it is for college students, but I also believe it is for people doing sound in little black box theaters or regional theaters. I am writing this for anyone who wants insight into the world of theatrical mixing at the highest level. I am focusing on musicals rather than plays because I believe they are very different skill sets, and it is vastly more difficult to mix a large-scale musical than even a large-scale play. For the most part, if you can mix a musical, you can move over and mix a play without an issue. The same can’t be said of the reverse. I started at the lowest level in theater and worked my way up. As I moved up the ladder, I learned what was possible at the next level. Once I reached the level of mixing a Broadway musical, which I consider the gold standard of

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theatrical mixing, I learned what is possible when you have a huge budget and plenty of tech time and previews to perfect your mix in a way you just can’t do outside of Broadway. Now when I go back and work at a regional theater or black box 50-seat theater, I take the lessons I have learned with me. I don’t lower my standards or expectations or my techniques. I work within the limitations of the theater, but I have a bag of tricks that I use to push that theater as much as I can. I bring knowledge that I know I didn’t possess when I was at that level, and I am writing this book so anyone at any level can hopefully take bits and pieces of knowledge used to mix on Broadway and apply it to his or her situation. I am so passionate about theatrical sound and mixing musicals. I think we, as mixers, are such a special part of a show and I want theatrical sound to continue to evolve as the most artistic technical aspect of technical theater. I want to do anything I can to help people become better mixers. I am writing this book because I wish it had existed when I finished my first load-out on Tap Dogs. So now I find myself sitting in coffee shops tapping away about sound. I guess it is a good thing I studied English in college so I know, where to put, commas.  How is this book laid out? What I want to do is lay out the book in the logical progression of a typical Broadway musical. I have different parts for the book that represent the different major parts of production on a musical. The first part is the general overview of what the career path is and the different players involved. After that, the parts move through the beginning to the end of a production. I break the parts into chapters that highlight the major areas of that part of the production. Some chapters have sub-sections to further break down the concepts of that part of the production. I am laying it out this way so it is easy for you to jump to an area where you need reference to a certain issue. The point of the structure of the book is to make you feel like you have gone from the beginning to the end of the process of a Broadway musical. After that, hopefully you will have added to your bag of tricks and will be able to apply some of these lessons to your process. I hope you will see this book as a companion for books like Bob McCarthy’s Sound Systems: Design and Optimization:

PREFACE 

Modern Techniques and Tools for Sound System Design and Alignment, Second Edition, the classic Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook, or John Leonard’s book Theatre Sound. This book is intended to complement these and fill a hole I think exists about mixing. I don’t plan to go very deep into design theory or system design in this book. People smarter than I have done a better job with that than I could ever hope to. Instead, I will keep my thoughts mostly to having your hands on the faders. Remember . . . up is louder. As for the last question: if a speaker feeds back in the woods, will anyone hear it? The answer is yes. Somewhere, some sound person will feel a disturbance in the force and grab his ears and not know why. Ears are muscles, and the more you use them, the stronger they become. This has a positive and negative effect. You will be better at your job, but you will be miserable when you hear a faint 60-cycle coming through in the speakers at your local coffee shop. Everyone else will be laughing and having a great time, and you will be in agonizing pain. But it is worth it to have the opportunity to mix someone like Sutton Foster singing a love song. It is completely worth it. Now let’s get started.

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1 PART

THE CAREER PATH

1. 2. 3. 4.

What Does It Mean to Be a Theatrical Mixer?  3 History of Theatrical Sound  11 Different Positions in Theatrical Sound  19 Different Levels of Theatrical Sound  43

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A THEATRICAL MIXER?

1

It is late in the second act. The story has been well established and the characters are now very familiar to the audience. We are way past exposition and just past the climax. The helicopter has already flown over the audience and the cast has stormed the Bastille and the guy in the half mask has already driven his fake boat through the sewers. And it has all been very magical. The lighting and the smoke and the projection have fleshed out the scene and the orchestra has played at full tilt until the room is ready to blow. Then the stage goes to a blackout. The fireworks and spectacle of the show are over and the audience applauds wildly at the end. The lights slowly creep up and it takes a while for the audience’s eyes to adjust. A small pool of light appears upstage left and in that pool of light is one actress. It is the female lead and it is her big solo, in which she accepts her fate or decides to turn it around and change her fate. Just about every show has a moment like this, and this show is no exception.

The song starts off as a whisper. The orchestration is thin, no more than two violins and a cello. Then it starts to grow. More instruments are added. She stands up. She hits a big note as the orchestra swells and then it all immediately shrinks back down to a couple of strings. Then it starts to build again, but this time there are more instruments, and now she is walking downstage. Lights are coming up all over the stage and the scenery is quickly removed, leaving nothing more than this one actress belting out her song

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Chapter 1  WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A THEATRICAL MIXER?

with the orchestra of 24 musicians supporting her. She hits a crescendo note, then a second of silence, and then she explodes into a huge crescendo. The orchestra follows her and the song ends to thunderous applause. It is massive and ear-crushing applause. This is the release of all the emotion in the show. It is bigger than any spectacle in the show, but it also depends on that spectacle to get the audience to the right emotional place. And their reaction is huge. But there is a problem. At the back of the house, in the mix position, the sound board operator for the show sits in absolute silence with his hands on the faders. He is mentally beating himself up over the last song. Sure, the crowd reaction was huge, but he knows it was off. He knows that on a night when it is perfect, he can hear people quietly start to cry after the first crescendo. He knows that when it all goes right, there is a standing ovation at the end of the number. He knows that the applause normally goes on long enough for him to stretch for a second and drink some water before the next scene. But tonight, even though the audience went nuts at the end, he knows he didn’t hear anyone get choked up, the audience didn’t stand at the end, and he didn’t get a sip of water. And he is not happy about it. As he mixes the next scene, he goes back over it in his head. The audience is completely satisfied and they have no idea that anything was wrong, but the mixer has mixed the show over 200 times and he knows. He wants to know what he did or did not do that changed the response. Did he push the big spectacle scene too loud? If he did, that could’ve left patrons with fatigued ears not ready for the song. Did he start her too quietly? If he did, the audience might have had trouble hearing her at the top, and that may have thrown them out of the moment. Was she too loud at the top? If so, it wouldn’t have been enough of a change to set the audience up for the rest of the song. After going over it again and again, he realizes what went wrong. After the first big crescendo he didn’t pull everything down enough, so that left him with nowhere to go for the big finale of the song. The audience has no clue, but he knows their reaction could have been bigger. That is what it is like to be a live theatrical mixer. It has almost nothing to do with knowing the model numbers of

Chapter 1  WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A THEATRICAL MIXER? 

every speaker and microphone. It has almost nothing to do with speaker placement and system equalization (EQ). It is about the symbiotic relationship between the amplified sound of the show and the audience reaction. It is about understanding the arc of a show and the arc of a song. It is about manipulation. There are mixers who cannot program a Lexicon 480L reverb unit but can mix with such emotion and ease that you forget the mics and speakers even exist. There are also amazing sound people who can program that Lexicon and field strip it and rebuild it, and yet have no interest in mixing. Mixing is an art like no other technical aspect of technical theater. It cannot be simplified to a push of the button. Mixing is dependent on several shifting factors. An actor is not feeling well, so she sings differently. A substitute, or sub, musician is in the pit and he plays louder. The audience is smaller than normal. The weather has changed and the room sounds different. It has been said that mixing is like playing a piano in which the notes are not linearly arranged, you have no clue where middle C is, and you have to walk up to it and play it perfectly. Francis Elers, who has mixed on Broadway for the last 15 years and has mixed shows including Rent, says mixing is like freestyle rock climbing with no safety in place. One wrong move and you are going to fall hard. Jordan Pankin, another long-time Broadway mixer who is currently mixing Wicked, explained mixing as a boxing match. He said you walk up to the desk, stand toe to toe with it for three hours, and see who wins. The best mixers out there are the ones who embrace the idea that the job of the mixer is to become part of the story and to manipulate the audience as much as possible. You still need to understand a sound system and all of the basic physics of sound, but your real assets as a mixer are your ears and your ability to move faders. Some call it being a “fader jockey,” and that term is not disrespectful. If you develop these skills you will be very valuable, especially to designers. Designers have to be very selective when choosing their mixers. When a designer is doing a musical, he knows that his design, in the end, will only sound as good as the person moving the faders around can make it sound. There will always be a very human element involved with the sound of a musical.

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Chapter 1  WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A THEATRICAL MIXER?

Actors are just as aware of the importance of having a highly skilled mixer. My first Broadway mixing position was for Man of La Mancha starring Brian Stokes Mitchell at the Martin Beck Theater, which is now the Al Hirschfeld Theater. Mr. Mitchell is an absolutely incredible actor with an amazing voice. He won a Tony in 2000 for his role in Kiss Me, Kate and is also currently the chairman of the board of the Actors Fund. Mixing him singing “The Impossible Dream” is one of the highlights of my career. I was being trained to be a sub mixer by Jordan Pankin, who was the full-time mixer. A sub mixer is the emergency cover mixer and the sub usually mixes one to two shows a week. Every musical on Broadway has at least one sub, and some shows have two or three subs. On my first day, Jordan took me to introduce me to Mr. Mitchell. Jordan told me that Mr. Mitchell had final approval over the mixer. Basically, if he did not like the way I mixed the show, I would be out of a job. Mr. Mitchell was very nice and, luckily, I kept my job. It is an important lesson to learn. Your job as a mixer is not relegated to the sound in the house. I have worked on shows in which the sound in the house was absolutely fantastic, but the sound onstage was not working for the actors. On one show in particular there was nothing but compliments in the house and nothing but complaints backstage. No matter what we tried, we just could not make the actors happy. It is a tough balance to find settings for the foldback that make the actors happy and don’t sacrifice the sound in the house. (Foldback is another word for the monitor mix onstage. The word comes from the fact that you are folding part of the sound back to the stage.) Finally, after months and months of working, the monitor issues were resolved. It is a horrible feeling because you want to help the actors, but at a certain point physics works against you, and there is apparently no good way to explain that to actors and have them accept that this is the best it can possibly get. I designed and mixed a show once that required me to work with an extremely challenging actor regarding the monitor mix. When we started the tech process, the levels onstage were normal levels for a musical, but the cast was not happy. As we moved into previews I was asked to turn it up and up and up. I tried to keep it from getting out of

Chapter 1  WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A THEATRICAL MIXER? 

control, but it was a losing battle. Finally, I was asked by the producers to give the actor whatever he wanted. I argued that the levels he wanted onstage would greatly change the sound in the house, which everyone was pleased with, but the decision was made that it was more important to make the cast happy. So I cranked it. The taps onstage peaked at 110dB, which is louder than a chainsaw. The crew complained and started wearing earplugs. They even posted OSHA signs warning of the hearing damage that can be caused by extremely loud volume. The sound onstage was so loud that there were times when the front-of-house system could be turned off and it would still be too loud. And yet it still wasn’t loud enough for the cast. After having a long conversation with the actor about the monitors onstage and what could and could not be done, he looked at me and said, “Why is it that it sounds so perfect in my head?” I honestly did not know what to say to him, but he very succinctly summed up the actor/foldback dilemma. The actors usually want it to sound onstage like it does in the house. Actually, they want it to sound like it would in a movie. They look at you skeptically when you explain that if you put an omnidirectional microphone into the speakers they are standing near, then the mic will probably feedback before they hear themselves. It is even harder to explain to them that, even if it doesn’t feedback, it will affect the sound in the house because of two very important reasons. One is that their mic will be picking up their voice along with their voice from the foldback speakers with a huge delay, and that will cause them to sound hollow and muddy. The second reason is that the speakers onstage will bleed into the house and muddy up the sound in the house. And don’t even try to explain to them that they will hear themselves with a delay that will actually cancel out their voice and could possibly make them sound even quieter. None of that matters. They know in their heads what they need it to sound like onstage and that is what they expect. But there is hope. Luckily, the main concern of most actors is how they sound in the house. They want to sound amazing to the audience. However, something happens with almost every musical that puts the cast on edge, when the cast takes the stage for the sitzprobe or wandelprobe. (A sitzprobe is

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when the cast sits onstage in chairs and runs through the music in the show for the first time with the entire orchestra. It is also basically the sound check for the sound department. A wandelprobe is the same, except the cast is allowed to walk the stage and do blocking and choreography.) Since this is the first time, there is a ton of work for the sound department to do. Inevitably the balance is not right for the cast, and it takes time to get it right. All the cast knows is that it does not sound good onstage. They can’t hear themselves or the rest of the cast, and the orchestra is not balanced at all. Naturally, their first fear is that they are going to sound bad in the house, and their second fear is that they are not going to get what they need. Actors are putting a great deal of trust in the sound mixer. They are basically putting their talent in your hands, so it is important to gain their trust and to let them know that you are doing everything you can to make them sound incredible for the audience. You have to allow them the time to understand that you are working as hard as you can to make them sound as good as possible. Once they find out that it does sound great in the house, they will usually relax about the sound onstage. They will still need help, but they will be more patient. If they find out it is a train wreck in the house as well as onstage, then it will be a long and miserable process. In the end, your saving grace is how good it sounds in the house. This does not mean you don’t do everything you can to make it sound good onstage. I have worked shows where there are almost as many speakers upstage of the proscenium line as down. A happy cast makes for a much better experience. Sometimes it is possible to give the cast everything they need, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you have to find a compromise between what they need and what is going to affect the sound in the house. But it takes time and planning and patience to achieve this. Sometimes having an actor feel comfortable so that a good performance is achieved is better than a perfect mix in the house and a lousy performance. Sometimes the compromise is the best choice. Sometimes you have no choice but to sacrifice the sound in the house for the sound onstage to best serve the show. However, getting to the final sound onstage is like

Chapter 1  WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A THEATRICAL MIXER? 

running a marathon. You have to be ready to run uphill with people pouring oil on the track. I designed a short run of Cinderella and my mixer was Chad Parsley, who has mixed Jersey Boys, Avenue Q, and Spamalot. We were in the middle of the wandelprobe and I walked up onstage, stood with the actors during a couple of songs, and worked with Chad to set the levels onstage. At the end of a song, I talked to the actors and told them to let me know what they needed. I of course received the usual answer: “I need more of me. More of me. More of me.” I explained that I would do the best that I could and to give us some time to get everything dialed in. As I left the stage and walked toward the back of the house, the director stopped me and asked if everything was okay. I said everything was fine and explained that the cast was trying to be patient with me, but they would hate me in another hour for not turning their mics on in the monitors, and then slowly but surely they would go out and listen in the house and hear how good it sounded and would then calm down. She smiled and said it sounded normal, and told me to let her know if I needed any help. As you can see, your job as a mixer has several layers. The first layer is a thick skin. You have to be aware of the incredible vulnerability of the actors you are working with. There may be times when everyone in the room is annoyed with you, and you have to acknowledge that they have every right to be. You have to hold it together and fix whatever is annoying them. You have to exude a confidence that everything is going according to plan, even if the console is on fire. The next layer is the artistic layer. You are there to amplify the words and the music. You facilitate the communication of story between the actor and audience as well. You are there to help carve out the emotional content of the show. You are also there to make the actors as comfortable as possible. But that’s not all. The next layer is the business layer. You are also there to train a sub how to mix the show, and you are responsible for ordering the perishables, such as batteries and tape. You are in charge of working with the rental house to replace broken gear, and you come to work no matter how sick you are unless you have a sub to cover you. There is a certain amount of confidence required to be a successful mixer, but it has to be couched with a decent

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balance of humility. You have to be confident enough to make quick decisions and implement them with ease. You have to know what knob to grab and how to EQ a mic. You have to have the confidence to know that your EQ is correct, but you also must have the humility to know that you are there to serve the designer and his design. As a mixer, you do not have to approve of every decision a designer makes; after all, sound is very subjective. You may like more hi-hat than the designer, and that is fine. As a mixer, you have to respect the decision of the designer and mix it the way you are told to mix it. I don’t think I have ever mixed a show in which I agreed with every sound coming out of the speakers or every choice made by the designer, but that doesn’t mean I disapproved of the overall sound of the shows. So what if you don’t like a certain reverb? The director and producer and designer like it. That is all you need to know. It is a huge challenge as a mixer, and it is why designers gravitate toward mixers who have very similar ears to their own. There is also a certain Zen place that an experienced mixer reaches while mixing a show. When you are new to the world of mixing musicals, it can be completely overwhelming. I remember my first big show. The designer/mixer made fun of me for sweating all over the VCA section on the Yamaha PM4000. What can I say? I was nervous. I was learning to mix a show, a huge show, live and in front of an audience of 3,000 people. I wasn’t doing a very good job, either, and I was very close to being fired. Luckily I pulled it off and toured on the show for several years. When you are learning a mix, it seems so fast. There does not seem to be any time even to breathe, let alone fix a problem on the fly, but once you learn the mix and you’ve mixed the show 50 or 60 times, it all slows to a crawl. That one scene that seemed impossibly fast is now creeping along and, not only can you mix it, you can also fix a problem and write down notes and call backstage to find out what’s for dinner. Once you do several years and several dozen shows, mixing in general just becomes easier. It becomes second nature. You get to the point where you can just walk up and throw faders and mix a musical cold with no run-through and without any panic or nerves getting in the way. It’s just you standing toe to toe with the faders: all the layers disappear and you get lost in the story and you mix.